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End Of The Line For The Croft Pit Incline.
Apart from the tenuous link with the Marchon system, the NCB's railway between Haig and Ladysmith handled mainly internal traffic from February 1972 until its closure in March 1975. Its duties were taken over by lorries until the new washery was ready. Coal production at Haig Colliery stopped in May 1984. A two-year development plan began to try to discover fresh reserves of coal, which could be economically worked. This came to nothing and the shafts were sealed in March 1986. The last colliery in the Cumberland coalfield had closed. Despite the improvements to the Corkickle Brake, Albright & Wilson began to move more traffic by road vehicles particularly as technical developments allowed chemicals to be produced in easily carried powder and flake forms. A proportion of the traffic was also taken by lorries to Preston Street goods yard in Whitehaven where it was off-loaded on to rail for transit. Raw materials for Marchon Works have included anhydrite and phosphate rock. The firm had an interest in the Long Meg Plaster & Mineral Co at Lazonby, which mined anhydrite. Because of a change in world trading conditions, the mines at both Kells and Lazonby were closed a few years ago but are retained on a "care and maintenance" basis. The main raw material is phosphate rock, which has a sand-like consistency. This is shipped from Morocco in self-discharge bulk carriers and transferred a mile outside the Harbour into 3000 ton freighters. These are unloaded in the Harbour and the ore is stored in huge silos on the quayside. Road vehicles are filled and traverse the mile or so through the town and up the hill to Marchon Works. The process of bringing in the phosphate rock is obviously very laborious and there was a scheme about 15 years ago for the construction of a deep-water jetty at the Harbour. Nothing came of it because the Government would not provide the finance for it. The phosphate rock and occasional exports of acids now comprise the main traffic at the Harbour. With the closure of Haig Colliery, there have been suggestions made that a new conveyor system along the course of the Howgill Brake would allow the rock to be carried up to Kells, thus eliminating much of the nuisance caused by the present lorry traffic. ***
On completion of the various processes at the Works, the products were loaded into either road tankers or rail tank wagons. The latter were placed in the internal sidings until a trainload was required to be made up. One of Albright & Wilson's locomotives then collected four or five wagons and took them up the single track railway, climbing away from the works on an embankment which curved round to pass under the High Road from Whitehaven to Kells, the alignment was then straight ahead to the top of the incline. This part of the route was in a deep cutting with the houses in the adjoining estates above. Part way along was a loop where the wagons were stabled. The wagon brakes were pinned down, supplemented by a rail brake stop. As the loop was separated from the top of the incline by the Lakeland Avenue level crossing. The next stage of the operation had to be coordinated so as to minimise disruption to road traffic: firstly the locomotive, which arrived at the head of the wagons, had to move forward and back over the crossing in order to gain access to the other line; next, the loaded wagons were let down by gravity one at a time from the loop to the incline head. When the Brake was modernised in 1954-55. A Crompton Parkinson 500hp electric winding engine was installed in a new engine house built above the rail tracks at the head of the incline, adjacent to the level crossing. The incline was thus power- assisted and two ropes were used. At the Brake bottom, the empty wagons were positioned near the foot of the incline by a BR Class '08' shunter. A 65hp electric haulage engine was used for moving wagons to within reach of the main haulage ropes. A similar small electric haulage engine was used for handling wagons into and out of the Whitehaven Brick & Tile CO's siding located on the north side of the incline. This was connected by a sharply curved junction. There was also a 2ft 6-gauge cable-hauled line from the Brickworks which passed under the Brake in a tunnel to a shale pit. The Brickworks' siding closed in the late 1960's when the traffic was transferred to road transport. A landslip occurred on the Brake near the Brickworks former siding August 1972.Incline workings had to be halted for about a week whilst the slip was filled in And a concrete-retaining wall built to prevent further trouble. *** For more Information and pictures about the Corkickle Brake Incline Visit The wonderful Cumbria Railways website created by Peter Burgess at www.Cumbria-Railways.co.uk. The Cumbria Railways website is dedicated to the lost railways of Northern Cumbria which have all closed during the last century.
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